From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,4c17e6ae73bd8c51 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news2.google.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.bt.com!news.bt.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:17:58 -0500 From: Brian Drummond Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada and UML Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:25:51 +0100 Reply-To: brian@shapes.demon.co.uk Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-AuthenticatedUsername: NoAuthUser X-Trace: sv3-8WcG7dZdFzIZLgNMYdbRgw2In8AS/DQVP9o66AA9QayIOrPhaHFIdbXocTPN3Jl656UnyDS26y4KIc4!UT8fXVmuyI+gawmf3eQF2bWvpGDMsb7ffQ612R22Hhza/QkMZ0ofFer9tqY+dTjj8asichXvfx9n!5Yc= X-Complaints-To: abuse@btinternet.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@btinternet.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:13908 Date: 2010-09-02T11:25:51+01:00 List-Id: On Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:18:11 +0200, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote: >Le Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:44:09 +0200, Simon Wright a >�crit: >What I expect, may be explained with concrete cases. > >I feel for long source does not came with all value and sometime, the >�clever idea� in something comes at an abstract level which not any more >clearly visible in a source, even if the source implements this �clever >idea�. ... >As an example, I have an FTP application written 5 years ago. Not so much >big, 2_000 lines. But I have to rework it, and although there are comments >and the design was clear at the time I wrote it, it seems impossible to be >sure to clearly understand what I had in mind at the time. ... >And what if I ever want to re-implement these things in another language ? >(one is C, the other is Pascal and JS) A direct translation to Ada (which >I plan for the future) would surely turn into many errors every where. One question possibly worth asking - is UML the right starting point for this discussion? It is certainly a candidate - but if the question is, how to capture the essence of a design independent of the implementation (either before design, or retrospectively to aid later understanding and possibly re-implementation) - is it the only, or even the best candidate? Others might be formal methods - Z or B, discussed here recently. It seems to me they can be used to capture a specification and ruthlessly test it - but maybe they cannot be easily applied in retrospect. Or even Bon (which was mentioned here about a year ago). I had never heard of it, so hunted down the recommended book via Amazon - second hand, ex-library. It was pristine - it had never been borrowed... I am probably the wrong persion to ask this question, having no practical experience of any of these tools (beyond downloading and playing with a UML tool set), but your post sounds so much like my internal debate that I am interested in your thoughts. UML appears to have more momentum and support than all the other options put together - does that alone make it the right choice? Or does it offer the best solution on its own merits? Or does its (relative) popularity mean that a "better" candidate (B, perhaps) is being overlooked? - Brian